


Dark Matter

by onstraysod



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: F/M, Force Bond (Star Wars), Force Telepathy, Inappropriate Use of the Force, One Shot, Sensuality, Yearning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-09
Updated: 2016-04-09
Packaged: 2018-06-01 03:09:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,258
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6498424
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/onstraysod/pseuds/onstraysod
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rey is never really alone. Even on Ahch-To, beginning her training with Luke Skywalker, she is frequently interrupted by an uninvited visitor. But is he truly unwelcome?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dark Matter

**Author's Note:**

  * For [politicalmamaduck](https://archiveofourown.org/users/politicalmamaduck/gifts).



> This is a short piece I wrote for politicalmamaduck for a prompt challenge on Tumblr entitled _[The way you said 'I love you.'](http://trash-by-vouge.tumblr.com/post/132858041745/the-way-you-said-i-love-you)_ The specific prompt for this piece was #14, _**A whisper in the ear**_.

He was everywhere around her, all of the time. There were moments - some long, some brief - when she shook off his presence, like slipping out of a robe or dashing water from her skin. But he always returned, coiling around her like a column of smoke, seeping beneath her clothes and running along her bones, taking up the space he'd staked in the corner of her mind.

It was odd, the way that he could be both inside and outside of her at the same time. She had confided in Master Luke about the mental intrusions and he had taught her techniques to shield both her unconscious and conscious mind, though he had confessed that she would need to grow far more proficient in the ways of the Force to successfully bar his entrance all of the time. A Force user as skilled and powerful as Kylo Ren, Luke told her, would find cracks and fissures in her defenses she wasn't aware existed, and he would exploit them in those moments when she was most vulnerable to attack: when she allowed herself to daydream, when she was in the most relaxed stage of meditation, when she felt sorrowful or frustrated or - especially - when she felt angry, and when she emptied her thoughts before sleep. Then, Luke warned, he would make his attempt to breach her walls and slide inside, to camouflage himself against the landscape of her mind before she could perceive his presence. And then, lulled into unwariness, the promptings would come, the urges, and she would accept them as her own. _Anger is only an emotion, a natural one and nothing to suppress. It is a powerful aid, a weapon of strength that can be used to defend yourself and those you care for. Embrace it._ Or she would feel an unreasonable irritation towards Master Luke, a sense of restriction: _he is holding me back_ , she would find herself thinking: _there is so much more to learn but he keeps it from me, he hoards it and allows me only the scraps._

But these thoughts were not the worst. There were others, and these were the ones that came in the night, in the darkness, when she lay on her narrow pallet, listening to the wind churning the waters, the waves breaking against the base of the cliff. 

_You are still lonely. You long for it - long to be touched. It is past time you felt it, a man's hands, a warm body against your own. How soft your skin, never caressed; how wet your lips, never kissed. Can't you imagine it? Imagine it. Imagine me. My hands. My lips. There is pleasure you've never even imagined. Let me give it to you._

_Open yourself to me._

She threw up her mental barriers in these moments, pushed him out, scrubbed her mind clean of him. There was peace inside her shields, silence and calm and the measured rhythm of her breathing. But there was more, and for some reason she could not bring herself to tell Master Luke of it. It seemed wrong, for reasons she could not explain to herself: as if it were an acknowledgment of something she didn't want to face. His presence wasn't just mental. It was physical, a living, moving sensation against her skin.

Sometimes it was no more than a warmth, the heat of another body close against her when she stood alone. Sometimes it was the mere ghost of a sensation, a prickling of the hairs on the back of her neck, an awareness of being observed in an empty room. Then there was the feeling of a hand, suddenly grasping her arm during one of her concentration exercises, throwing her off balance, disrupting the equilibrium of her thoughts; or the stirring of air against her cheek as she meditated, the exhalation of a breath.

The worst of this came at night too, and no matter how tightly she wrapped the thin blanket around her body or curled in her limbs, nothing seemed to prevent it. The fingertip ghosting up the line of her leg. The face beside hers on the pillow, warm lips invisible but mere inches away. The heavy solidity of a hand laid upon her stomach, her hip. The brush of thick hair over her cheek, her brow, the shoulder bare where the blanket and the sleeve of her nightshirt had ridden down. Why? she had sobbed once in her head, striking out physically at his unseen presence. Why are you doing this? Is invading my mind not enough?

She had heard his laughter, as clearly as the wind against the stone wall. But then she heard his voice and it was quiet, deep and calm.

_You have the power to push me away, Scavenger. You are so strong. With a word you could dismiss me, with one thought send me flying across the galaxy. So do it. Make me leave. Ask me to go and I'll go._

She did not ask.

And this was why she could not tell Master Luke. She could not explain why she lay awake every night on her narrow pallet, waiting. And why, on those rare occasions when she fell into a deep and undisturbed sleep, she woke empty and disappointed. She could not face the legendary Jedi and admit that when the first brush of that unseen presence fell against her skin her heart began to race, a frisson of excitement running up and down her spine. She could not tell him of the tongues of fire that licked at places inside her she had never learned the names for, nor the way the sound of his unspoken voice made lightning crisscross the inside of her skull.

She told herself again and again, in the moments when she was sure she was truly alone, that it was the challenge that excited her, the battle of wills that his presence represented. She told herself that the same adrenaline that had pumped through her veins during their fight reawakened every time he made contact, and that she looked forward to besting him and pushing him away. And maybe it was true.

“The deception of others is a danger to a Jedi,” Master Luke had told her. “But self-deception is more dangerous still.”

She stood on the edge of the cliff, looking out over the white-capped waves, a cold wind blowing the loose tendrils of her hair, pushing at the edges of her robes. And when she felt him behind her, his body large and solid against her back, his arms coming to encircle her, she did not fight. For so long she had thought he came merely to taunt her, to unsettle and disturb her. Yet she had slowly come to realize that there was another reason, a sharp, pulsing current that lay beneath his every intrusion.

He had whispered to her many times some variation on the same refrain: _Come to me, Rey. Join me. United we can rule the galaxy, subsume it to our will._ But the words had changed subtly, the sentiment beneath them taking on a different kind of meaning.

_I need you, Rey. I am incomplete. You are the missing part of me; only with you can I ever feel whole._

She shook her head, groped in the shadows of her mind for her shields but could not raise them. His voice fell soft and black and weightless as dark matter against her ear.

_Come to me, Rey. I need you_ , he whispered. _I love you._


End file.
